The Metaverse Roadmap Overview, an exploration of imminent 3D technologies, posited a number of different scenarios of what a future "metaverse" could look like.

The four scenarios -- augmented reality, life-logging, virtual worlds, and mirror worlds -- each offered a different manifestation of an immersive 3D world.

Of the four, I suspect that augmented reality is most likely to be widespread soon;

moreover, when it hits, it's going to have a surprisingly big impact.

Augmented reality (AR) can be thought of as a combination of widely-accessible sensors (including cameras), lightweight computing technologies, and near-ubiquitous high-speed wireless networks -- a combination that's well-underway -- along with a sophisticated form of visualization that layers information over the physical world.

Imagine holding up an iPhone-like device, scanning what's around you, seeing various pop-up items and data links on your screen.

That's something like what an early AR system might look like